Advanced · 23.5 litres · Traditional method brut
Traditional method sparkling
A second fermentation inside a sealed bottle, then a year on the lees, then disgorging. The most equipment-heavy thing on this site and the most satisfying when it works.
Starting sugar
20.2 Brix
5.15 kg of fermentable sugar
Original gravity
1.084
from the ingredients, not asserted
Finishing gravity
0.995
dry
Alcohol
11.7%
Brix alone predicts 11.1 to 12.1%
Residual sugar
0 g/L
approximate, from gravity
Ready after
15 months
best around 5 years
Made to Traditional method brut, and every computed figure lands inside the published range for it.
ABV inTA inpH inRS inWhat decides this wine
Twenty-four grams per litre of tirage sugar and not a gram more. That gives about six atmospheres, which is what a Champagne bottle is built for. Thirty grams gives seven and a half, and bottles start failing. Use proper sparkling bottles and crown caps, and wear a face shield when you disgorge.
What goes in
| Ingredient | Weight | Sugar | Volume | Share of sugar |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chardonnay18.5 Brix (picked off the midpoint) Picked deliberately under-ripe. A base wine wants to be lean and sharp; it gains a further 1.2% alcohol in the bottle. | 35.00 kg | 4.60 kg | 23.10 L | 89% |
| White sugar Tirage sugar, 24 g per litre, dissolved and added with fresh yeast at bottling. This is what makes the pressure. | 0.55 kg | 0.55 kg | 0.35 L | 11% |
The ingredients contribute 23.4 litres and the water makes up the rest to 23.5 litres. Those figures are checked against each other when the site is built, because a recipe whose volumes do not add up produces a wine weaker or stronger than every number above.
Acid and sulphite
Acidity of the must
9.0 g/L
at pH 3.00
No malolactic
9.0 g/L
the acidity you measure is the acidity you keep
Potassium bicarbonate
26 g
to reach 8.0 g/L. Bench trial before treating the batch
Sulphite at bottling
0.6 g
potassium metabisulphite, for 15 mg/L free SO2 at pH 3.05
The batch
- Must volume
- 23.5 L
- Ferment at
- 14-18 C
- Molecular SO2 target
- 0.8 mg/L
- Malolactic
- No
- Yeast
- DV10to 18%, low N
The sulphite figure is worked out against the pH of the finished wine, not of the must. Malolactic and deacidification both raise pH, and dosing a finished red to its must pH under-protects it by roughly a third. Recompute for your own reading.
Method
- 01Press, settle and ferment the base wine dry at 14 to 18C. Do not put it through malolactic: you want the acidity.
- 02Rack, sulphite lightly and cold stabilise. Bottle only a wine that is completely stable.
- 03Make a tirage: dissolve the sugar in a little wine, add a rehydrated DV10 starter, and mix into the whole batch.
- 04Bottle into sparkling bottles and seal with crown caps. Lay them down at 15C.
- 05Leave twelve to eighteen months on the lees, which is where the bready character comes from.
- 06Riddle the bottles nose-down over a few weeks until the lees sit on the cap.
- 07Freeze the necks in a brine bath, disgorge, top up with a dosage, and cork and cage immediately.
The two instruments this recipe needs
Every number on this page came from a hydrometer reading and a pH reading. Without those two you are following a recipe rather than making a wine, and the sulphite figure in particular is meaningless without a pH you have actually measured.
Measuring
Hydrometer and trial jar
SOLIGT Triple Scale Hydrometer and Glass Test Jar for Wine, Beer, Mead & Cider - ABV, Brix and Gravity Test Kit
$18.98
Tracks the ferment from must to dry. The gap between your starting and finishing gravity is the only reliable way to know the alcohol you actually made.
Measuring
pH meter
Apera Instruments AI1113 pH Calibration Buffer Solution Kit (7.00, 4.00), 8 oz. Each
$18.00
The most important instrument on this page. pH decides how much of your sulphite is actually protecting the wine, and dosing without knowing it is guesswork.